From the anarchists on this board, I would like an improved understanding of how individuals and their property are protected in an anarchist system. The only model I can see would be a "protection racket" style self defense, where certain houses are known to be "protected" and those attacking them will be hunted down by the protecting organization. This would also seem to be very open to the common end result though of a protection racket, where anyone without protection is subject to random attacks by any protection group, and where a stronger protection group provides "incentives" to join their racket by demonstrating the inability of your existing service to provide protection. Is this actually how "law enforcement" works in an anarchist state, or am I missing something that would prevent this kind of mob rule?

Glad you asked. I was only convinced that defence and protection services could happen by listening to Hanns Herman-Hoppe (sorry if I recommended him before).

He recently addressed the "protection racket" talk just a couple of days ago at Oxford (he essentially argues that a "protection racket" is actually the genesis of government "defence" and that as soon as competition in "protection" occurs, this problem begins to evolve positively): http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Hoppe_O ... 3-2008.mp3

Here he is on security markets: http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/MU2004/Hoppe3.mp3

And the myth of national defence: http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/PWD2003/PWD-Hoppe.mp3

But I suspect you don't just want a list of audio lectures, but some discussion. In which case, I will try to answer your points.

Your premise seems to be Hobbesian (correct me if I am wrong) - that man, without the state, will war "all against all" whereas my premise is that without the state, man is most incentivised to cooperate. I think the limited government view is the most unprincipled in it's assumptions: that man is almost always disposed to cooperate, but somehow won't if one group doesn't have a monopoly on protection.

Running with my assumption then - it follows that men will cooperate for their own security. They will form groups for mutual protection. As these services improve and physical protection becomes less essential (this is where your suspicious is that a protection racket market is born to incentivise protection) in actuality, the best protection firms would begin to morph into insurance firms. These firms would outcompete any protection firms (due to lower costs) and, in fact, would physically wipe out any protection-racket types quickly (again, because of lower costs=more money for rare protection).

Really this works pragmatically in the same way that modern states are incentivised not to just form protection rackets. There is no world police force (as such) that is needed to prevent the US and Canada from going to war with each other. There is much more benefit in peace and commerce then there is in wasteful war. There is no need for a threat from a global military monopoly to keep us all in line. Granted there have been exceptions that chose to fight anyway - but these states have generally been bankrupted by the effort, and then absorbed by wiser countries (in one way or another). Obviously this isn't an exact empirical example, but it is an easier way to think of some general ideas.

Historically though, this has almost NEVER been the case. Until recent times, there were always opposing groups who would engage in violence against their neighbors. Even today, in much of the world dictators forcibly take hold of weapons and use them to exert their will. This is clearly non-pragmatic, as can be seen by comparing Africa to the US, but it happens.


Again, this has NEVER historically been the case. Threat of a global power has ALWAYS been the impetuous behind long term periods of peace. The lack of world conflicts today are not because of pragmatic avoidance of war, but rather because the US spends more on its military than the next five nations combined. Now I would agree this could be done by individual insurance companies banding together, but I find it hard to believe there could be peace without a global military power since it has NEVER happened before this point.

If both of your points are entirely correct, then the error is merely with the example.

However, I disagree (not with the facts you present regarding the example [which may be in error, I fully admit]) but with your analysis.

Of course there is war and of course there will still be war. But what stops war? The threat of violence from some monopoly power - or the fact that one state literally runs out of resources? Secondly, what holds in check this monopoly - if not the threat of some kind of competing force from within the monopoly or something else? Do we not see global monopolies ALWAYS historical devolve into civil wars for control over the monopoly? Is this not the natural progression of the escalating build-up of monopoly protection power (in the same way as a build up of a monopoly of wealth in a socialist system leads to a "civil war" of lobbying groups seeking exploitation rather than mutal profit)?

Can you see that the very results that you suggest are the case with non-monopoly protection are actually the results of monopoly protection? I know that you can see this result in something like national health care, but can you not see that the reason it is so in health care is not unique to that articulation, but because of an underlying law of nature?

You have given me a great deal to think about. It is indeed the strain between powers that keeps powers in check, and a power with no opposition has no alternative but to turn inward its use of force. Force by its nature is rarely simply not exercised.

The other major criticism free market security services often attracts is that of the free rider. I cannot protect my clients in town from a nuclear bomb without also protecting people who do not pay protection. This creates an incentive to live near someone (and preferably in the middle of several someones) with powerful protection without paying for that protection yourself. Do you see this as a failing of privately funded protection, or simply a cost of doing business for such companies? Can security really be maintained without the use of static and mostly connected regions of protection? Do we end up with fighting in the streets between security companies if one is unwilling to give up a member who has committed violent crime against an opposing company?

I think this really is it. I mean, at some point, even with the perfect limited government - some leader or coalition will get in power or some emergency will arise and require a compromise. This is because limited government is in and of itself: a compromise. You cannot ask a system that is compromised from the start to obey absolutes - that's not logical. I think people like Jefferson realized this and came to the conclusions that regular revolution might prevent this inevitable compromise.



Yes, the free-rider is a valid criticism. I would definitely call it "imperfect" or even "unjust" but it does not ultimately compromise the main principles of private protection.

One might even make the case (and I am in unknown territory, so this could be totally shredded) that the free-rider might be a very "natural" phenomenon. It might be some kind of symbiotic economic arrangement, where the free-rider leeches off living in a protected group - but maybe adds a statistical figure enabling the company to raise the price (surely New York would have a higher protection cost than Eureka, CA, maybe in part because it is bigger population-wise [including non-customers] which means that the service can justify a higher price because it is more likely a target just because of population). While this is still a free-rider (whose costs have just shifted to the other customers rather than the company), their costs would likely be spread out.

I think you would rarely see fighting in the streets because it's too costly - too much wasted resources. And it would be bad marketing for a company to always be fighting. It is much more cost-effective to get an arbiter and do it through an orderly process. I would think that credible protection services might have to be members of certain arbitration and watchdog/standards organisations in order to attract the best customers. The last thing customers want to do is pay for wasted resources in street violence.

Here is a pocast from the Lew Rockwell Show, with an anarchist who deals with he free-rider criticism right towards the beginning:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=e ... rchist.mp3